Monday, June 7, 2010

Celestial Magic Ideas

With the promise of magic based around heavenly bodies, and an ever-increasing array of sun, moon and star motifs in the promotional artwork, everyone wants to know the deal with the Celestial Magic. Where will we get training points? What will the spells be like? Will they be battle spells, or used outside of battle, for puzzles? I have more than a few ideas.

Firstly, I don't think that KingsIsle will be making any more spells for the seven original schools. Simply the fact that we have these "Master of" titles implies that we have learned the entire book on our respective elements. These medals only became available with the level 48 spells, and the only explanation I can think of is that those were intended to be the very last spells.

Secondly, this new magic will be KingsIsle's way of allowing us some choice in our higher level spells without having to make brand new spells for each school. Perhaps each attack can have a different efffect, or each of the three schools of Celestial magic will combine two of the previous schools, i.e. Sun is Fire and Life, Moon is Ice and Death, Star is Myth and Storm.

Thirdly, the spell schools will be located in Celestia. Everyone cites a cramped Ravenwood as a good reason not to have more schools, but as Alhazred shows us, schools can be anywhere.

Fourthly, perhaps Celestial Magic is KingsIsle's way of opening up a world of more complex magic. Most magic requires the caster to draw a magic circle or sigil, or otherwise will create one under their feet while casting. Previously, the sigils in Wizard101 have consisted of the school symbol, slowly rotating. I think of something more like this when I think of magic circles:

Credit for that image goes to mondu of DeviantArt, and CLAMP. The picture itself is one of a magic circle from the show CardCaptor Sakura, which is a guilty pleasure of mine. The plot involves her capturing/befriending magical cards, and later using them to summon magic spirits (sound familiar?).

The cards she captures are like these:

The common celestial motif is a common one in magic.

Will the spells we learn come with new magic circles, and far greater power? Only KingsIsle knows.